Last week you asked Andrew Mitchell a number of questions. Here are the Shadow International Development Secretary's answers.
Alan S: Given that the United Nations has failed Rwanda and now Darfur, does it not need fundamental reform?
The United Nations’ peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts have done much to relieve human suffering; in some areas of the world UN peacekeepers are the crucial factor in creating the conditions for peace and stability. For example when I visited the DRC last month I witnessed at first hand the difficult job that MONUC has done there under very challenging conditions. (For more information on this visit see the footage I recorded on WebCameron.
However, these successes have often been overshadowed by a failure to act in the face of humanitarian disasters like the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Bosnia and now Darfur.
The UN is too often hamstrung by muddled mandates, Security Council cynicism, chronic deficits in military assets and training—all of which need to be resolved.
I therefore agree that change is needed and that Britain, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, should be the one to show leadership and promote a serious reform agenda.
I will be making a speech on 18th June at RUSI setting out my proposals for UN reform. Drop me an e-mail for more information.
Oberon Houston: Given the terrible events of the last few days in Darfur - what are you doing in reaction to this? Can we do more, or who is blocking? I am convinced that history will judge us terribly on this if we allow this genocide to succeed.
We can certainly do more. Despite four years of misery, the international community hasn't even begun to turn the screws on the bullies in Khartoum.
We should strongly support the work of the ICC in holding to account those who’ve been involved in genocide and ethnic cleansing.
We need to enforce targeted sanctions against the regime's leaders by freezing their bank accounts and applying travel bans to stop their shopping trips to Paris and London. And we should chip away at the network of businesses and charities that enrich the regime and its members.
We also need to see the rapid deployment of a stronger equipped and better mandated international force to protect the people of Darfur.
In the meantime, the world must offer full support to the African Union troops who are doing a brave job in very difficult circumstances. The people of Darfur deserve more than another round of toothless diplomacy and bluffing and manoeuvring from the Sudanese Government.
Jon Gale: What is your view of the argument that international aid impedes economic and institutional development in a similar way to the domestic "welfare trap"? Africa has received some $600 billion in foreign aid since 1960, yet most African nations are poorer today than they were then.
Aid can work miracles. In Uganda a couple of years ago I saw children who are alive today because of British aid. I saw people who have been saved from an early death from HIV/AIDS because of British-supported medical facilities.
In 1978 the terrible killer disease of smallpox was eradicated as part of an international campaign and we have now almost succeeded in eradicating polio which used to cripple hundreds of thousands of children every year. So I don’t have any time for the argument that all our aid efforts have been wasted. The Conservative Party is firmly committed to increasing our aid substantially to 0.7 percent of our national income by 2013.
But we must be candid and acknowledge the many contradictions and failures in the global aid system. I believe we can get much better value from our aid money.
At the moment aid is far too often delivered without enough focus being placed on the eventual outputs. As a result money given to governments in the developing world frequently fails to reach the neediest: the small village at the end of the track which has no school or lacks good water and sanitation. Too often our hard-earned taxpayer’s money has ended up in the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt dictators and government officials.
This is why I have repeatedly pushed Hilary Benn to introduce an Independent Aid Watchdog like that in Denmark and the World Bank. This would enable us to gain a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t. We would then be able to learn from these results and deliver more effective aid.
Matthew Dear: Would your proposal for a pan-African free-trade zone be backed up by an abrogation of tariffs between the UK and the new zone, and would you pressurise the EU to do the same? And what of farm subsidies?
The EU should make radical cuts to its high agricultural and other protectionism which hurts both poor people and British consumers.
The Government’s failure to secure radical reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) during the British Presidency of the EU in 2005 was a grave disappointment, and has contributed to the current deadlock in the Doha Trade Round. I hope that in future the Government will do more to promote the cause of freer, fairer trade with Europe.
Justin Hinchcliffe: Why do we give aid to China and Russia when their leaders are more than happy to shaft us on the international stage?
I find it surprising to say the least that China, a country with a trade surplus of $23.8bn in February 2007, will have received £75m from the British taxpayer over the course of this year and the next. So last year I went to China to find out why and I didn’t come back with any serious justification for this.
China’s progress over the last two decades is an important reminder that trade and globalisation have the potential to lift millions of people in poor countries out of poverty. China and India have done just that.
Justin Hinchcliffe: Do economic sanctions ever work?
In March I visited Burma, where ten years ago the EU imposed a range of sanctions. These were shortly followed by a US ban on all inward investment to Burma and all Burmese exports.
The question of economic sanctions in Burma is tricky. Ordinary Burmese people would almost certainly benefit from more exposure to global trade and influence. After all the regime is deliberately isolationist. We don’t want to further impoverish Burmese people by cutting them off from the opportunities of global trade but we have to be careful to ensure that any international investment doesn’t go to line the pockets of the despicable military regime in Rangoon. (for more information on this visit see the footage I recorded on WebCameron)
There are also calls for divestment from Sudan which the Conservative Party supports. But any sanctions must be tightly targeted so that they hit the regime and do as little damage as possible to ordinary people.
Felicity Mountjoy: Should the UK promote environmental objectives through aid disbursements? If yes, how?
Poor people in the developing world will be hit hardest and first by climate change. The conflict in Darfur has been exacerbated by desertification and of course natural disasters take by far the heaviest toll in poor countries.
It is important that the efforts to limit climate change don’t hold back growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. The challenge is to ensure that as far as possible growth in these countries is ‘green growth’.
The sole focus of our aid policy should be reducing poverty and saving lives and we should always try to do this in the most effective way possible. This will certainly involve some environmental measures.
Londoner: Would some form of "enhanced gift aid" be worth considering for developmental charities?
Would it not be good if a proportion of the overseas aid budget's destination was decided by interested taxpayers in this way, thereby enhancing individuals' charitable priorities? This might also help such charities raise money as they could claim "more bang for your buck" than other charities.
Another variation might be some form of "lottery" whereby you buy a £1 ticket specifying one of say, 10 projects, and for each ticket bought, the Govt adds another £1 or £2 or £5 towards that particular project. This could also be done by ticking a box on your tax return and the money (from pre-tax income) is taken there.
The point of all this is that the aggregate of such individual decisions are more likely to reflect people's priorities than a Govt department purely spending other people's money.
This is an interesting idea. We are looking at ways of helping really effective NGOs and charities without making a huge increase in the number of DfID personnel to monitor and implement such help.
CCHQ Spy: What do you think of your opposite number Hillary Benn? He seems likely to be the new John Prescott!!!!!
The Secretary of State is a nightmare to shadow because he is good at his job and is an honourable and decent man.
Umbrella Man: What went wrong with the David Davis leadership campaign and your coordination of it?
David Cameron won. He is proving to be a brilliant leader of the Conservative Party and is on course for victory at the next election.
TaxCutter: In the early 90s you were in charge of Conservative Students. Why do you think that so many of the best student activists of that period are not MPs or PPCs?
They wisely took my advice and have gone off to do something other than politics first. They will all be back and running the country in 10 years time.
Alex: Do you think it is appropriate that you combine your jobs as an MP, front bench spokesman and senior international investment banker? Will you give up your role with the investment bank if we win the next election?
Yes and Yes.